The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

Colossians 3:5-10, “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

6 For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come,

7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.

8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.

9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices,

10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him…”

There’s a little rhyme that came to mind as I loaded the six verses above:

I don’t smoke

And I don’t chew;

And I don’t go with

Girls that do.

The intimation of that verse is that all bad stuff has been emptied from the author’s lifestyle. But how does that rhyme

connect with the biblical verses above? Hang on, and I think you soon see it.

Paul urges the Colossian believers to “consider the members of (their) earthly bod(ies) as dead to immorality,

Impurity, passion evil desire, and greed. Those are the elements of evil that perished simultaneously with their coming to faith in the LORD Jesus Christ. That’s the “heavy stuff,” and its all gone under the Blood of Christ. Forgiven. Forever.

But that’s not the end of the fight with the flesh. The six sins noted in verses 8 and 9 are not so easily dismissed.

Have you noted that? Anger (orge, impulsive wrath), wrath (thumos, rage), malice (kakia, wickedness), slander (blasphemia, blasphemy), abusive speech ((aischrologia), and lying (pseudomai) false speech) –all of these creep back into our lives and explode in unexpected moments. They may not dominate our daily lives, but they exist; and it’s their existence that ruins our testimony for Jesus Christ.

I won’t go so far as to say that lost, unregenerate people are “spying” on us as believers. But to some extent they are. We’re the ones they know as “Christians” (little Christs, as it were). We lay claim to being different; and when we are at our best, we are different. But in moments of tension, when we say or do something that is less than it ought to be, the ones who need our witness and need Jesus Christ, lose hope in Him, as they lose hope in us.

We must always be on guard! We must always be truthful! We must always be aware of Satan, who ensnares us and drags down our good words and works. Live in the Word of God! Live in earnest prayer that He will enable you to stand strong and forthright in the “faith once delivered to the saints.” God bless you abundantly! I pray for you daily!

Please keep me in your prayers.

Heartily in Christ Jesus,

(Dado III)

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

Springdale, Arkansas 72764

United States of America

“We never know that God is all we need

until He becomes all that we have.”